Best breakout novel

The Lightkeepers by Abby Geni

Published July 11, 2016

Photo: Courtesy of Counterpoint

The Evanston resident who pitted man against wild in her 2013 short-story collection The Last Animal crafted a thrilling first novel this year. The Lightkeepers (Counterpoint, $25) is set on the hellish Farallon Islands, where gulls, sharks, and mice skew murderous—and a nature photographer becomes entangled in her colleague’s mysterious death.